FANTASIE QUARTET
for oboe and strings
premiere performance on March 19, 2023
Philippe Tondre, oboe • Dara Morales, violin • Marvin Moon, viola • Amy Sue Barston, cello

Silverman Fantasie Quartet

James Weeks: Primo Libro
Ekmeles

From FCR394 Ekmeles: We Live the Opposite Daring
Coming out February 16th, links to pre-order/buy below!

Bandcamp: https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/we-live-the-opposite-daring
Presto Music: https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9590785--we-live-the-opposite-daring

James Weeks: Primo Libro (Ekmeles)

Music composed by Adam Silverman (2023) to poems by John Stone.
Performed by Constellation Mens Ensemble.

PROGRAM NOTE

John Stone (1936-2008) was a poet, essayist, and cardiologist who lived his adult life in Atlanta, Georgia, serving at the Emory University School of Medicine alongside my father, Mark Silverman. Dr. Stone and my dad joined the Emory faculty the same year and died within days of each other. They were good friends and had much in common, including a distinctive old-world charm and a patient-centered perspective that they brought to medical practice. And while my father wrote an endless stream of clinical articles and book chapters, I think he envied Dr. Stone’s ability to perfectly turn a phrase, and the specific way he viewed the heart in its “literal and metaphorical” senses.

So many of Dr. Stone’s poems address the memory of his father, whose heart attack at age 45 must have guided the son’s journey into cardiology. Of course, I find it impossible when reading these poems not to reflect on the loss of my own. I consider this choral work to be a tribute to these two men and composing it has offered a chance to feel as if I am spending time with both, now fifteen years gone. For this, I am grateful.

- Adam Silverman
==
All poems are used by permission from Louisiana State University Press and were originally published in the following collections:

"Spiritual" was originally published in "Music from Apartment 8: New and Selected Poems" (2004). "Talking to the Family"and "Autopsy in the Form of an Elegy" were originally published in "The Smell of Matches" (1972). "Losing a Voice in Summer" and "The Girl in the Hall" were originally published in "In All This Rain" (1980). "You Round the Bend" and "Seeing Double After Eye Surgery" were originally published in Renaming the Streets (1985).

Seeing Double After Eye Surgery

An Adjustment (2015)
for piano, chamber orchestra, and electronics

1a. breakable gaps
1b. awkward didact
2a. earnest build
2b. euphoria assault

(excerpts from sections 2a and 2b.)

Commissioned by Dirk Brossé, Music Director, and Janelle McCoy, Executive Director, for The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Underwriting for this commission is, in part, by The Presser Foundation, The Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia and The Archie W. and Grace Berry Foundation.

performed by Conrad Tao with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia conducted by Dirk Brossé
Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia
September 21, 2015

An Adjustment (2015) [excerpts]

Opera by composer Adam Silverman and librettist Susan Gubernat, performed by The Opera Company of Brooklyn, May 3, 2008 in piano reduction. 

[ ARTISTIC PERSONNEL ]
Adam Silverman:  Composer
Susan Gubernat: Librettist
Jay Meetze: OCB Artistic Director and Conductor
Judy Weinstein: Stage Director
Sarah Jane Hintz-Rau: Chorus Director
Christopher Bruckman: Pianist
William Hicks: OCB Assistant Artistic Director and Pianist

[ CAST ]
Tracy Wise, tenor: Janusz Korczak and Korczak's Father
Mary Rauh, mezzo-soprano: Stefa Wilczynska
Maija Lisa Currie, soprano:  Esterka Winogron
Giuseppe Spoletini, baritone: Bula Szulc, Male Passerby, Mr. Mand SS Soldier
Candice Hoyes, soprano: Miss G. and Nun 1
Kathryn Krasovec, soprano: Female Passerby and Nun 2
Mark Kaczmarczyk, bass:  Mr. S., Adam Czerniakow, Father Christmas/Herod, and SS Soldier
Jonathan Hare, bass-baritone: Neighbor, Mr. M and Rickshaw Driver
Danielle Musick, soprano: Nun 3
Laurie Rubin, mezzo-soprano: Nun 4

[ CHILDREN'S CHORUS and CAST ]
Ben Albert: Marek
Alexander Bird: Abrasha
Will Conard: Stasiek and Jozef
Sabrina Edelman: Ghetto Child
Caroline Lenz: Hanna
Marleina Hanau Cohen: Ghetto Child
Natasjah Holtz: Ghetto Child 
Kristina Lakshin: Helenka
Taylor Lockwood: Aleksandra
Tyler Mitnik: Henryk (Young Korczak)
Yonatan Rozin: Jerzyk
Lydia Mariko Stetson: Ghetto Child


Korczak's Orphans  Act 3, Scene 1

"The Cruel Waters"
Composed by Adam Silverman, 2015
Performed by Troy University Percussion (T. Adam Blackstock, director)
Justis Davis, Andrew Patzig and Tyler Whitehead, marimbas
Recorded 2016 by Garnet House Productions
John W. Parks IV, engineer

The Cruel Waters

Transcription of Domenico Scarlatti's Keyboard Sonata K. 213 for Guitar

Initial

Scarlatti K. 213 (D minor)

WANT IT. NEED IT. HAVE IT.
Composed by Adam Silverman (2015)
Performed by the RoseWind Duo: Clifford Leaman (alto saxophone) and Scott Herring (marimba)
From the 2016 CD "Devils Garden/Angels Landing" on Equilibrium records (EQ161). Used with permission.

www.equilibri.com
www.adambsilverman.com

WANT IT. NEED IT. HAVE IT.

ANTIQUE VIOLENCES : Concerto for Trumpet
Movement 1
by John Mackey

MIDI Demo
Commissioned by Michigan State University and The American Bandmasters Association
To premiere March 2017, CBDNA convention, Kansas City. Justin Emerich, trumpet.

Four movements in total, each depicting a type of violence. This movement (movement 1), portrays military violence, and imagines if the Revolutionary War had been fought against... I don't know. Where is the music modal and in 13/8? Macedonia?

Score available here: ostimusic.com/pdf/Mvt1-SCORE.pdf

John Mackey: Antique Violences - Mvt 1 demo

PAPER COVERS ROCK
Composed 2016 by Adam Silverman
Live world premiere performance by the Quey Percussion Duo at Weber Music Hall, University of Minnesota-Duluth on Nov. 21, 2016.

Paper Covers Rock

The influence of Chinese, Japanese, Brazilian, and Malian rhythms is central to this work for three percussionists. Set in six interlinked movements, the work combines interpretations of ancient rhythmic patterns with aggressive bursts of energy and extended playing techniques. 

Unpitched South American percussion instruments and Chinese drums interplay with western, pitched percussion as the work moves through contrasting energetic rhythmic sections into eerie and suspenseful passages. 

Complex arrays of cross-rhythms give way to almost motionless passages of uneasiness. The uneasiness is extended by a shifting tonal centre. 

The title of the piece is taken from the final line of the haiku Year's End, by the Japanese poet Basho.


Seeing Double After Eye Surgery

Adam B. Silverman

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